Finding Toothless
by HoneyBeeez
Summary: Hiccup's usually not one to get tangled up into everyone else's problems, but it becomes personal when his best friend is dragged into the mix. Now, he has to work together with a strange mermaid he just met to get him back. (Finding Toothless AU on tumblr, or mermaid AU!)
1. Chapter 1

**HELLO! So, I wrote this for shesellsseagulls' Finding Toothless AU on tumblr! so this idea isnt even mine, haha XD I'll update whenever i get another part to add to this, and its also going on my tumblr!**

 **DISCLAIMER: i own nothing, so TAKE THAT! READ ON!**

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Word travels fast underwater. Maybe just a little too fast, because in a fortnight, every mermaid in the sea knows the horrifying story of one of their own being snatched up from the surface. Some speak of it like it's some old legend, saying the rascal "hasn't been seen since." Others take heed, and there's a certain lack of mermaid activity for about a month. Most of them choose to stay in hiding, only going to the surface in the dead of night if they absolutely need to.

That's most, though. One mermaid thinks the story is bogus, and that they shouldn't be scared of something so preposterous. He tells everyone he knows that they should ignore the warnings that naturally go with the rumored story, but he's shut down. As always. Because he was never really popular in the first place.

Hiccup Haddock was the official oddball of the Hooligan Hoard. Most would say he was reserved, but he had his quirks. If he heard that, he would say he was all quirks, and he wouldn't change a thing. When he first heard of the story of the kidnapped mermaid, he laughed so loud and long that he needed to catch his breath afterwards. (He got quite a lot of glares because of that, but it was too funny!) He dismissed everyone's warnings, because they were so far away from where it happened (in the Arctic Sea, mind you) and because it was preposterous.

He would have disregarded this whole thing, if his father, Stoick, the most powerful mermaid in the Hooligan Hoard, hadn't have told him to be careful. The whole dilemma shocked him, because his father usually didn't give in to such ridiculous stories as this, but apparently, this was serious.

So Hiccup made sure he was extra careful, per his father's wishes, as he sneaked out during the middle of the night. He strapped his spear to his back and made sure that he was vigilant as he swam into open-ocean. He worked quickly, crossing the distance in what he thought was record time, and it was enough to make him break out into a grin.

He went directly up to an ominous-looking cave that sat below a huge, colorful coral reef, not once drawing his spear. He was swallowed in the darkness, and yet he wasn't even scared.

"Toothless?" He called in a melodious tone. He squinted and looked around in the dark, looking for…

A huge sound, almost like a pained groan, but a hundred times louder and stronger, echoed through the cave, and not even a second later, something equally as huge was colliding with Hiccup's chest, sending him sprawling onto the cool cave floor.

"ACK! TOOTHLESS!" Hiccup shouted, whining, and pushing at the thing on top of him. His spear's shaft was digging into his spine, making it uncomfortable to stay in that position for long. "Get up, you useless mammal!" He half-yelled, half-whispered, finally realizing that _no one was supposed to know that he was here_. The pressure was gone in the next second, and when he floated up, he sent a hard glare to the killer whale across from him.

The whale's eyes gleamed with something that looked like an apology, and Hiccup's glare dissolved into a loving smile.

"I know, I'm sorry, I'm happy to see you, too, bud." He said, swimming over and hugging the side of Toothless' massive head. The whale gave a soft squeak in response. "Let me check on your tail before we get you food, alright?" He said, patting Toothless' head three times before looping around and swimming towards the back of the cave.

His eyes, now adjusted to the scarce lighting, scanned the left side of Toothless' tail calculatingly. Deep, long gashes once riddled its surface, making it horrifying to look at. Now, the gashes looked more like deep-set scars, ones that practically screamed, " _I survived, fear me_." Hiccup grinned at the rapid progress of the wounds, before lighting tracing the scars with the tips of his fingers.

Toothless jerked, not out of pain, though, more like out of confusion.

"No pain, huh?" Hiccup asked, his smile becoming slightly wider. "You know what that means!"

Toothless' tail wiggled in agreement, and suddenly the cave seemed a bit too small to contain his excitement.

"You're good to go, buddy!" Hiccup said, swimming over and giving the huge whale another hug. "C'mon, let's find you some breakfast." He said, dashing out of the cave, the killer whale right on his tail.

As they swam even further out into open-ocean, Hiccup remembered when he first found the killer whale. Fighting between sharks and killer whales were uncommon, but definitely not unheard of, especially not in warm, ideal waters like these. So, Hiccup was definitely startled to see one of such fights unfold right in front of his eyes one day while he was away from the Hoard.

It was as vicious as vicious got, biting, howling in pain, smacking with tails as they jerked around, everything about it was horrifying and slightly intriguing. Hiccup didn't have time to watch much of the fight, because a couple seconds after his arrival, the huge killer whale locked eyes with him. Wide and fearful eyes compelled Hiccup into the fray, his spear in his hand in a matter of moments.

With a shout, Hiccup swam as fast as he could towards the shark. A second later, a cry of the whale's own joined Hiccup's, but this one was a cry of pain as the shark bit down onto his tailfin. Hiccup's spear found the shark through a plume of the whale's blood, and injured it enough to send it swimming away.

After that, Hiccup nursed the whale back to health, naively named it 'Toothless' after a slightly confusing mishap on Hiccup's fault, and the rest was history.

The sun was shining above the water just as Toothless found a decently sized school of fish to terrorize and eat. Hiccup knew that everyone else back at Berk (where the Hooligan Hoard resided for at least a thousand years or so) was up by now, and that his father might be a little furious with him for being gone… again. But, it didn't matter, as long as he came back with _something_ to prove that he was doing something productive out on his own.

Watching Toothless hunt was a sport in and of itself. He darted around and around, almost like he was herding the school of fish in, making a tighter and tighter tornado of the fish until he charged at it, maw open, and chomped at whatever fish he could get. Hiccup couldn't help but stare. It was… completely different from what he expected from a killer whale… or maybe it was just Toothless-specific. He didn't know and didn't really care all that much, because it was fascinating. When Toothless was done, he swam next to Hiccup and nuzzled up beside him. Hiccup gave him a pat and smil-

" _AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!_ "

Hiccup and Toothless were looking around immediately, but the source of the scream was nowhere to be found. Toothless growled lowly, barring his teeth, and Hiccup immediately pulled out his spear; Toothless he didn't have a problem with. Anything that Toothless had a problem with? Ooh no, someone's going _down_.

Toothless shot off as fast as he could, and Hiccup quickly grabbed onto his dorsal fin, letting him pull him along so he didn't lose his only friend. It didn't take long to find the source of the screaming: a fellow mermaid with shockingly white hair and a possibly even paler complexion, who was being chased, and was finally cornered, by a familiar-looking shark. Hiccup let go of Toothless' dorsal fin, looked him in the eye, and nodded.

Keeping a strong grip onto his spear, Hiccup darted towards the shark and the cornered stranger. With a shout, he whacked the shark strongly on the nose with the shaft of his spear, while his free hand shot out and grabbed the stranger. He dragged him away as Toothless charged the shark.

"Hey! Let me go, you crazy-!" The stranger was yelling, prodding at Hiccup's strong grip in vain. Hiccup only held onto him tighter until he though they were far enough away from the fray, and only then did he let go. "What the hell do you think you're doing?" The stranger asked angrily.

"Saving your life," Hiccup said levelly, "and you're welcome, by the way." He added, smirking a little.

"I did _not_ need your help." The other mermaid said, folding his arms across his chest defensively.

"Yeah, sure. I see you would have handled the situation just fine." Hiccup said, humoring him. He figured that after something like that he would be a little shaken up too, so he just gave the guy some slack.

"Yes, I would have, thank yo- HOLY SHIT!" The mermaid shouted, his eyes finally going back to the shark that nearly killed him. What he saw instead was the violent fight between a shark and a killer whale, and the killer whale was winning by a landslide. The large amounts of blood saturating the water around them was scary enough, and that wasn't even counting the flashes of teeth and the realization of " _that could have been me_ " that was probably flashign through the stranger's head right about now.

"We've got to move before more sharks come." Hiccup said, his voice shaking the guy from whatever little reprieve he was taking. He grabs his wrist again and starts to swim away, before looking over his shoulder and calling, "TOOTHLESS! COME ON!"

The stranger looks on, horrified, as the killer whale obediently stops attacking and swims after them.

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA!" The stranger exclaims, working his wrist out of Hiccup's grip and swimming backwards away from him and the whale. "Wha… what the… WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON?!" He decides to yell, not knowing which one of his thousand questions should be answered first.

"We're swimming away from the dead shark so that we don't get-" Hiccup is explaining calmly before Jack interrupts him.

"No! Not that! I'm talking about _that_!" The stranger says hysterically, one hand making a wide gesture towards Toothless, and the other making its way up and tugging at his white hair.

Toothless and Hiccup share a look, something that says, " _oops_ " and " _what do we say now?_ "

"Well, this is my friend, Toothless." Hiccup explains, patting the killer whale's head gently.

"But… this isn't natural, is it?" The stranger said, still backing up and still looking stressed, or simply confused. "It isn't supposed to… follow you around or… do whatever happened back there…"

"Well, I sort of trained him. Sort of." Hiccup said.

"Sort of?!"

"He's not going to kill anyone, I promise." Hiccup soothed.

"Oh, well that's good to know!" The stranger says with a nervous little laugh to go with his hysteria. "You know what? I have to go. Thank you for saving me, and everything, but I'm just going to pretend none of this ever happened and-"

"You can't go back that way." Hiccup said, pointing in the direction where Jack was about to make his escape. Jack looked at him quizzically. "You'll be in more trouble than you were before. And I'm positive that you wouldn't like me and Toothless having to save you a second time."

"You're right." The stranger said. "But I don't want to be anywhere near your… whale friend, over there." He said, giving Toothless another nervous glance.

"Fine." Hiccup said, patting the whale's head again. "Bud, go back to the cave, and I'll see you later, alright?" He said, getting a nod and a coo from the whale in response. The whale glared slightly at stranger before swimming off (Hiccup pretended not to see him flinch as he passed).

"So, that's one issue out of the way, right?" Hiccup said, trying his best to pull up his friendliest smile.

"Guess so." The stranger muttered. "I'm Jack."

"Hiccup. Nice to meet you."

"The feeling is slightly less mutual."

"Understandable. Now come on." Hiccup said, starting to swim away from Jack.

"Wait! Where are you going?" Jack asked, hurrying to follow him.

"You don't have anywhere to go, right?" Hiccup asked, looking at Jack over his shoulder. The white haired mermaid nodded. "Thought so. We're going back to Berk. You hungry?"

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 **This was really fun to write, so i hope to write more of it soon! (and dont worry, I'm plannign on finishing TTMATMW soon! Sorry for me being a butt!)**

 **THANKS FOR READING! LEAVE A REVIEW PLEASE!**

 **I LOVE YOU!**

 **-HB**


	2. Chapter 2

**IM BACK! THANKS FOR PUTTING UP WITH ME! i have another chapter of this!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I OWN NOTHING. THE CHARACTERS BELONG TO DREAMWORKS AND THE PLOT LINE/AU BELONGS TO SHESELLSSEAGULLS ON TUMBLR.**

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The way back to Berk was longer than I thought it would be. And awkward. _So. Very. Awkward_. I could have stabbed my own tail with my spear if it meant that I could pick a simple conversation topic. But what the heck do you say in a situation like this? What do you talk about after you just save someone's life? The whole thing was completely lost on me.

"So… uhm… where are we going again?" Jack asked beside me, finally breaking the silence.

"Back to my Hoard. Tribe. Clan. Whatever you want to call it, really." I said with a shrug.

"Ah." He said, nodding. "What about the whale?"

"He usually stays in his cave. It's safer for him there." I paused. "Also, could you-?"

"Keep quiet about your little friend back there because no one knows that you've trained a killer whale and practically keep it as a pet?" Jack says, finishing my sentence before I could even think of the exact words I was going to say. "Sure, no problem." He said, smiling.

"Thank you." I said, gratefully. "And he is _not_ in my pet. He's my friend." I corrected, pouting a little. Toothless was so much smarter than any other creature that I've ever met; it was kind of an insult for me to consider him a pet.

"Not a lot of merfolk would consider killer whales their friends, huh?" Jack asked. "They're more like competition for food."

"Well, yeah, basically." I replied.

"It's not like we all go around and say 'I want to train a killer whale, something that can rip my face off!'" Jack mocked.

"Look, Toothless wouldn't ' _rip my face off_ ,' as you put it." I refuted, giving him a glare. Okay, okay, cut him some slack, he's confused, probably lost, and just trying to cope with all of this, right? It's not like he'll be a jerk like this forever.

"But it's not normal to go around training killer whales!"

"No, not usually." I agreed, taking a deep breath and trying to center myself. "Look, I know it's weird, and I know you're probably freaked out by it, but there's nothing you can do about it, so just let it go."

"Fine, fine… letting go." He said, putting his hands level with his shoulder and wiggling his fingers around. I stared at his pale, slender fingers in shock, because the water around them froze, sticking his fingers together bizarrely. "Oh, shit…" He muttered, trying his hardest to get them to unfreeze.

"Here, here…" I muttered, stopping right in front of him and using my hands to warm up his, melting the ice. The moment he could wiggling his fingers and break the rest of the ice off, I moved away. "Now what the hell was _that_ all about?" I said, raising an eyebrow and pointing at his fingers.

"Nothing!" He immediately balked, hiding his hands behind his back.

"Liar!" I shouted. "Tell me!" He was such a hypocrite! Here he was, telling me off for having my best friend be one of the most deadly creatures in the see, and he's randomly freezing things! How did he even do that?!

"I don't know, okay?" He said defensively. "I'll… tell you later, probably. But not now! I'm hungry!" He added quickly, catching the argument I was trying to make in my head. I huffed, and nodded.

"Fine." I said, swimming again, and a second later, I heard him trying to catch up to me. "You say nothing about Toothless, and I'll say nothing about your ice issues."

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Bringing a new person into Berk didn't work as well as I thought it would, especially since I knew nothing about him, and well, he was good-looking. Not that _I_ thought he was good-looking, but apparently everyone else did, but mermaids were swarming around him the second I brought him into the Hall.

"What's your name?"

"Where are you from?"

"How do you know Hiccup?"

"I didn't know _Hiccup_ had any friends around here!"

"You should stop by more often!"

"Uhm…" Jack said, a little uncomfortable with the attention. He gave me a worried glance, and somehow I took that as " _help me!_ " instead of " _who are they?_ "

"Hey, guys, sorry." I said, swimming in between the swarm of girls and Jack. "He just got back from a really long trip, and he's hungry and tired, so leave him be." I wasn't the best at talking to… well, just about anyone in Berk, but at least I knew how to blow them off.

"Fine. I'll talk to you later!" About a thousand different versions of the same line sounded as the mermaids swam away. I huffed, triumphant, and looked back at Jack.

"You have ice in your hair." I observed, eyeing his white hair, now completely stuck up at odd angles and held there by shards of ice.

"Dammit." He muttered, running his hands through his hair and breaking up the ice. "Thanks." He said, and somehow I knew he wasn't talking just about the hair thing.

"Anytime." I mused, rolling my eyes. "C'mon." I said, swimming towards the kitchen-of-sorts in the Hall. When we got there, I looked over to see Jack's shocked expression.

"There's… so much food…" He said, awed.

"Take what you want. We have too much, in my opinion." I said shrugging. I took a pouch from one of the counters and threw it at him. He caught it effortlessly, but it was like he was still in a daze. "Do you want those crazy girls to come back?" I asked, loud enough to snap him out of his funk.

"Right, right." He said, swimming around the excess amount of food and picking what he wanted carefully. He filled his pouch to the point of bursting with little sardines, some clams, and a couple leaves of seaweed, before closing it up and looking back at me. "Don't stare at me like that." He said, glaring a little.

"I'm not staring at you." I denied, even though I kind of was. It wasn't like I meant to stare at him, but… okay, it was kind of upsetting, how much food he got. When, exactly, was the last time he ate? If he wants all that, he must be starving. I mean, it explains how thin he is, but… what happened to him?

Not that, you know, I was worried about a stranger or anything. But maybe he wasn't exactly a stranger anymore.

"Liar." He deadpanned. "See? You're staring again!"

"No, I'm _not_." I insisted, squinting my eyes at him in something that would have been a teasing glare. It was half-hearted, though, and I knew it. "Come on, let's just get going so you can eat."

"We aren't eating here?" Jack asked, following me out of the kitchen. "And wait, why didn't you get something to eat?"

"Not hungry." I said shortly. "And I think it's best to keep you out of everyone's sights for now." I said, looking back at him. I wasn't worried, I was… concerned. For what? No idea, but I don't think having him be surrounded with practically everyone in the Hoard was the best thing to do right about now.

"Am I a secret?" Jack asked jokingly, appearing at my side with a cheeky grin. I took one look at his grin before rolling my eyes.

" _No_ , its just that… whatever. Never mind. Just come on." I said, swimming ahead once again and heading for a shelf of rock a little bit away from the rest of the Hoard.

"Well, this is a neat little set-up you have here." Jack noted, sitting at the edge and opening his pouch. He cracked open a clam and started eating, setting the shell down next to his sapphire tail. I sat down next to him, and ultimately decided to lay down instead, looking up at the surface and the shimmering of the sun on the water.

"Thanks. I come here a lot." I admitted, folding my arms behind my head and flicking my tail a little. I was about to say something else, when I looked at him from the corner of my eye and saw him scarfing down a sardine or two. I sighed, resolving to give him a couple minutes to eat his fill before talking.

My mind bugged me more than I thought it would. Ice. He _made_ ice. It stuck his fingers together and spiked up his hair. It didn't seem like he had a lot of control over the thing, whatever it was. Something about it didn't seem right, either. What kind of mermaid is able to freeze things? Wouldn't that be considered magic? So how is he able to do all this, and why is he the only one I know that can do this, considering that it _is_ actually magic?

"So…" Jack drawled, sprawling out next to me and mimicking my posture. "Whales." He said bluntly, a contented smile across his face.

"So… ice." I said, copying his tone.

"I asked you first."

"I asked you second."

"Yeah, but you saved my life, which kinda means I owe you."

"And so this is how you're paying me back? By letting me talk first?"

"Yup!" Jack said cheerily, grinning from ear to ear.

"Fine." I sighed, before telling him a very, very paraphrased version of the story of how I met, befriended, and ultimately trained Toothless. He listened raptly, something I didn't expect from him, and he almost seemed amazed at the whole thing. Which was a little bit odd, because he was acting like it was SUCH a big deal earlier.

"Wow." He said bluntly, blinking a few times. "That just made so much sense."

"Yeah." I said. "Now it's your turn. What's with the ice thing?" I said, turning slightly so I could get a better look at him as he told his story.

Instead of launching into this elaborate story like I thought he would, he sat up and ran his hands through his hair again. He stayed hunched over like that for a moment. Something about it made me uneasy, and I found myself sitting up next to him and looking at him worriedly.

"Look, you don't need to tell me if it brings up bad memories or something-"

"Have you heard anything about that one mermaid that got snatched from the surface?" Jack muttered suddenly, looking up, but not at me. I blinked a couple times, confused out of my mind. Why would he bring that up, of all things? Everyone knew of that stupid… myth…? Everything fell into place, and I refused to believe that it all fit together that well.

"You don't mean…" I sputtered, the words not coming to my lips as fast as I wanted them to.

"That was me." Jack admitted, his head hanging and his voice saturated with something that sounded like regret.

For some reason, _I_ was the one that couldn't breathe right. My hand came up to cover my mouth and it felt like someone split me open and was tying my intestines in a knot. All of that was true. One hundred percent true. Jack was proof, and he was right in front of me. I was beating myself up for something so stupid, because I should have believed the story, should have been nicer, should have done… _something_.

"I was playing with my sister, and we got a little too close to the surface. I guess we didn't notice that something was above us, because a net dropped down and I got tangled up and…" Jack relayed, sounding like he was on the verge of tears. I wanted to reach out and touch his shoulder or something, but I just let him keep talking. "This guy took me to… I don't even know what it was. It was filled with tanks, and there were fish and other whales and animals all over. He stuck me in a tank and pricked me with needles. He took my blood and there was something in the water and…

"I found out his name was Pitch, and that I was the first merman he ever got his hands on. There were… so many tests, and he took so much blood that I blacked out." He paused, and bit his lip, almost afraid to go on. I couldn't wipe off the horrified look on my face if I tried.

"Have you heard of the Guardians?" He asked me suddenly, facing me for the first time since he started his story.

"Y-Yeah." I said, my voice shaking a little. I cleared my throat, and tried to start again. "Yeah, aren't they specially chosen by the Moon Spirit to protect the seas and everything living in it?" (Listening to children's tales taught me that much, I've never heard about them anywhere else.) Jack nodded.

"When I was blacked out, I saw this really bright light, and then it transformed into the Moon. I heard a voice, but I'm not so sure what it said anymore. But all I remember is that it got really, really cold, and I woke up and I looked like _this_." He said, gesturing to all of him to punctuate the last word. I gave him an once-over, and suddenly the spectacularly pale skin, sapphire tail, blue eyes, and white hair made sense.

"You're a Guardian." I breathed, and he glanced at me, slightly shocked but proud at the same time.

"Yeah. Pitch thought that I was getting sick, so he threw away all the stuff he got from me, like my blood and test results and stuff. He said he would kill me in the morning, because I was useless to him." Jack said with a huff. "So I waited until it was dark, and I unlatched the top of my tank and got out. Then I just… froze the ground enough to slide across it and get into a stream. Then I followed that into the ocean and… now I'm here." Jack finished, cracking an ironic smile.

"I-I… I'm sorry…" I said, unsure what to say. "That must have been awful, I'm so sorry."

"What are you sorry for? You had nothing to do with it." He said bluntly, giving me an uncomprehending look.

"Uh…"

"It's fine, honestly." He said, huffing a little. "I didn't tell you all that to bum you out or pity me. And the only thing I'm sorry about is leaving my sister alone."

There was a moment of silence where the cogs in my head were turning and Jack's unnaturally blue eyes were swimming with unease. He's been through so much as it is, and by the sound of it, all he wants to do is go back to his sister.

"Let's go, then." I said, getting up and swimming in front of him. I extended my hand to him, determination lining my face.

"What are you talking about?" He asked, giving me the most comically confused look I've seen in a while. I almost laughed.

"Let's go find your sister." I clarified, giving him a little smile. He lit up, his eyes glinting and his smile wider than I've ever seen it before. In a second, he was up, knocking my hand aside and hugging me instead.

"Yeah!" He yelled right in my ear, a laugh bubbling out of him. "Yeah, yeah, yeah! Let's go!" He said, breaking the hug and swimming a little ways away before stopping. "Do you even know where you're going?" He asked me, looking over his shoulder

"No, but I have some maps that might help us." I said, swimming up next to him. "Plus, Toothless has a great sense of direction. He can probably find the place after a little while." I added, and Jack just nodded.

"We should get some supplies first." Jack suggested. "We are heading into colder waters, after all. Well, colder for _you_ , anyways." He said, grinning cheekily.

"Ha, ha, I'll be fine." I said, rolling my eyes at him, before leading him back into Berk.

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 **This was fun XD THANK YOU FOR READING! Please leave a review!**

 **I LOVE YOU ALL, STAY SAFE, AND I AM HERE FOR YOU!**

 **-HB**


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